Made a firm decision recently. I am switching permanently to Beckett and regrading what I have. I have a huge number of reasons why I came to this decision, pondering long and hard with my tobacco pipe and I’ll tell you why.
I simply like the aesthetic of Beckett cards much better. I, like most people, love their Pokémon cards. They are basically our hard-earned caught and trained Pokémon that we got in real life. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that. With this being said, I feel like the BGS slabs are more appropriate for such coveted prizes. Donned with silver, gold and black plaques, the overall look and feel of them seem more appropriate compared to the simple continuous red lining of PSA.
I love the grading system of Beckett more than PSA. I love the subgrades, mainly for the reason that, having been an avid Gameboy player in my youth, they truly seem like each of my Pokémon’s stats, leading to an overall stat. It’s kind of like surface is attack, edges are defense etc. It makes each fossil Gengar different from the next, even if they are both 9.5’s. It makes the hunt so much more rewarding to see each of your Pokémon cards “stats” broken down. And don’t even get me started on how much I love black label.
Here is my main reason: Beckett is honest and PSA is corrupt. In my long, collecting journey, I have come across many, many people (in person mainly, considering I get out a lot and trust next to nothing I read online these days), Pokémon collectors, sports collectors, big timers, small timers and everyone in between. I’ve graded a lot. I’ve graded through people, I’ve graded personally. What I have found is the ugly truth that most “big-time” collectors do not ant the majority of us to know: PSA is a “pay to win” service.
Basically, if you have big money, a big name or use them a lot, you’ll get your grade. Now I’m not talking about scoring 10’s with unlimited base set Nidoking’s, I’m talking about big cards. Rare cards. Also I’m not talking about paying a percentage based on the value (however which I also think is super lame of grading companies in general). I’m literally saying that I have personally acquired, trusted, insider information that PSA purposefully grades cards lower or higher to keep certain population reports low and to accommodate certain peoples names or their spending power.
To be honest, this idea is pretty much an unspoken (or spoken if your like me) understanding between higher-end collectors. The reason why you don’t hear a lot about it mainstream is because there is a huge portion of influential collectors on the internet that don’t want anymore PSA 10 1st edition Charizards or PSA 4 1952 Micky Mantles added to the roster. Why? because the value of their collection drops. PSA doesn’t want that either. Why? They have their own collections and they don’t ant the value of their collections to drop. Its an outright scam. Its the same thing that happens when a tyrannical government has power of a population: They do anything required to keep power over a population.
Conculsion:
I’m not a spokesman for Beckett. Just look at any kind of influence I have on the internet. It’s none. In fact, any of the 4 posts I’ve posted on here have been other unpopular opinions. But Beckett is honest. That’s something worth its weight in gold to me. I only ant to do business ith people that are fair and honest, lest I be tainted by their bad karma, whether its financially beneficial to me or not.
This is something that I think people should know about. I want to compete in a fair Pokémon league, with fair rules. I have a fat ungraded collection. I love it. I want to get the ones that haven’t been graded yet graded and the ones in PSA slabs broken and sent to Beckett. I’m sold and I’m decided and I am tired of the tyranny, tired of the monopoly and tired of grading with PSA just because that’s what everyone else says is the best just because there’s too many influential collectors that have deals with PSA to call them the best.
I’m a firm believer in the spirit of Pokémon. I think that PSA has fallen out and started working for team rocket. I don’t like corruption. Pokémon is pure and should remain so.
I won’t try to change your mind, having a personal preference on a grading company is perfectly fine! If you like the aesthetic and grading system of BGS more, that’s great!
I’m interested in some additional information on your “pay to win” comments however. I think it’s fairly standard to assume that PSA would apply more scrutiny to something like an illustrator than a regular set card, if for no other reason than protecting themselves from bad publicity if the card is seen to be overgraded. But you seem to be saying more than this, do you have examples of what cards they are “pop controlling?”
Also, even if we were to assume PSA is doing this, do you think other grading companies are not doing the same? I think of BGS and their (eventually ineffective) promotion for grading the One Ring, where they effectively all but guaranteed the card would receive a high grade if the owner graded the card through BGS. Of course, the owner went with PSA, and it was graded a 9.
Firstly, you do you! Your preference is perfectly legit, and you don’t need our approval. But pretending BGS doesn’t have the same subjectivity issues when grading is a bit conspiratorial for my taste. And I don’t see how it would affect your enjoyment of your cards.
No need to change your mind. If you prefer Beckett then all the power to you. I personally can’t get past the pee wee soccer league trophy looking labels but that’s just me.
No I don’t have direct cards that they are pop controlling which I can give out as hard evidence. That would be nearly impossible to produce. All I have is my years of experience and years of others experiences combined with information.
It’s true they do preferential treatment. I recently sent in a mint card, it would earn psa 9 all day, but once they saw “smpratte” on the order, they gave me an 8.5!
You do you but i actively avoid BGS because of how brickish they feel. I dont care about the premium idea of the label color/material, it doesnt change the grades authenticity. I think they could have updated at some point in the past 20years and gotten better clarity slabs. As far as service quality i see them all as the same, subjective. Whether its psa with their grade inconsistency, bgs with grade inconsistency, or cgc with their willingness to bend their own rules for a good article, none of them are innocent.
Some collections look good with bgs but if its down to getting a card cheaper with bgs and ace is selling the same thing higher, id probably take the ace. I dislike their slabs that much.
Bruh, relax. If you like Beckett, that’s awesome. Go and use them.
Nobody is going to try to change your mind. You’ve blown through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man with conspiracy theories and paranoia. We can’t argue with “just trust me bro.”
